A very strange girl was blown by a tornado to the wondrous land of Oz....
but the REALLY strange thing is that she's still in Kansas!

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Hare Today and Goon Tomorrow...

And down down down came the Good Fairy,And she said: "Little Bunny Foo Foo,I don't like your attitude"(Children's song, author unknown)

As I've said before, we're in the middle of re-decorating the house. My mother brought many of my things from overseas to me when she was here last Spring. And the deal struck by Blaine and me was that he would paint the house the color I wanted and then I would re-decorate everything. So throughout this blog post I'll put a few pics of the "in progress" areas. The things in the settings are always subject to change as I have a habit of having to look at things for awhile until I make a final decision---and then I may take things away or I may add things. (I think if you click on the pics they will get bigger.) If you see things out of place or on the floor, that's things I haven't figured out what to do with yet.

Anyway, while I'm showing you the house, I'm going to tell you how I solved a HUGE problem in our house. And I'm sure many of you will know exactly what I mean.

How many of you get irritated because your man/woman doesn't pay attention to you? (I'm just going to use the word "man" from now on because that's my significant other and it's easier to type than "man/woman"). Anyway, how many of you feel ignored and unattended by your man? You know what I mean---you're talking to them about the events of the day and you notice that they have one eye on the television or the computer screen and the other, the eye that's supposed to be paying attention to you, is glazed over, obviously not registering what you're saying.

It drives me nuts, I tell you. Nuts.

I mean, I pay all my attention to Blaine whenever he talks to me. I will stop what I'm doing, put down my knitting, or else take away my eyes from the TV to look directly at him. I always pay attention to every durn word he says, whether it's yawningly boring or some other fool thing he's talking about. And on top of that, I pretend I'm interested.

But Blaine and many other significant others don't return the courtesy. Noooooooooooooo. They ignore the hell out of you when you talk. And then if you bitch at them about it, they claim they WERE paying attention to you when you know damn well they WEREN'T paying attention to you.

(Blaine was the one who found the nifty pot lid-racks on the bottom shelf of the kitchen island below. The top is his "sack lunch station" where he constructs his work day sack lunches. I keep his banana hanger there. I keep his walnut, almonds, and a roll of Baggies in clear containers. I even light a little red candle there in the mornings to make "ambiance" for those early mornings. The hanging down thing from the lamp is masking tape that we used to cover the cords while painting the kitchen.)

So then you test them to see if they're listening to you. You talk to them for a minute or two and then you slyly say: "Okay, what did I just say?"

In the old days, men were totally caught red-handed by that question. And then they'd have to shamefully admit they weren't paying attention and you could yell/bitch/scream at them all you wanted. But today's men are.....well....different....

They have become IMMUNE to our tricks. Can you believe it? They're immune. They're like viruses that have mutated. They have adapted to their environments and have become stronger and more difficult to deal with.

(The pic below is a mosaiced tea set my artist mother made for me. She cut each individual tile herself and adhered them with a special adhesive. Then she grouted the set. The cloth underneath is my crocheted creation from metallic and eyelash novelty yarns---but it doesn't show up well in the pic. The throw pillow is one of two I bought in Syria.)

Anyway, I don't know about your significant other but my Blaine has now developed the sinister ability to recite the last two sentences I said, thereby proving that he IS listening to me. But I'm not fooled and no amount of bitching will get him to admit he is STILL not listening to me.

Okay, I have never been one to be daunted by a problem. I'm so stubborn that I'll figure out how to solve it or die. And I finally got totally exasperated last night.

(There is a tiny coleus plant below, in the little gazebo on top of the pedestal. I crocheted the little green & brown cloth.)

I was talking to Blaine while he was on the computer. He plops himself in front of it whenever he gets home from work and checks his investments. I noticed there were graphs, pie charts, and spread sheets in front of him as usual. So, thinking he could take a second or two to listen to me, I told him about a particular problem I'd had that day. He didn't blink an eye. He kept looking at his graphs, pie charts, and spread sheets. And I realized that, yet again, he wasn't listening to me for beans.

And I got angry.

(Below are just odds and ends from various countries. It's supposed to be mostly things that remind me of the Crusades with African things thrown in. I crocheted the little leopard cloth.)

So, simmering in my knitting chair, I got madder and madder and madder and madder at the oblivious Blaine. I knew that none of my tricks (like asking him "what did I just say?") would work. Nothing would work. Once Blaine's eyes are on a computer, that's it---he's glued to it. And what's worse, he is a computer nerd who works with computers at work on a daily basis. You'd think he'd get tired of computers by the time he gets home from work! But noooooooo. He's always got his head stuck to the computer. He even installed our home computer screen on the coffee table so that he can watch TV while he works at the computer.

So, an idea sprouted in my head. Slowly, I stood up. I casually walked over to the area directly in front of his computer screen. I crouched down below and crawled until I was directly underneath the screen.....

And then I suddenly popped up behind his computer screen like a Jack-In-The-Box, right in his face over the computer's screen---with my right hand's fingers shaped like rabbit ears. I began a puppet show with my fingers, making the "rabbit" hop along the top of his computer screen while singing my favorite childhood song:

Little Bunny Foo Foo

Hopping through the forest

Scooping up the field mice

And bopping them on the head...

He was dumbstruck. Silent. He actually stopped working on the computer. But finally he gained his wits about him and watched my performance wordlessly. He let me get all the way till the part where the Good Fairy starts descending from whence Good Fairies come from, in order to turn Little Bunny Foo Foo into a "goon"--- until he started clapping sarcastically.

For that matter, where do Good Fairies "descend" from? Fairy Heaven? Is that a suburb of regular Heaven? I need a Good Fairy but there's no field mice around here for me to bop on the head to summon one.

And for that matter again, what do Bad Fairies do? Encourage Little Bunny Foo Foo to keep on bopping the field mice on the head? Provide even more hapless field mice to Little Bunny Foo Foo to bop on the head? And where do the Bad Fairies live? Bad Fairy hell? If that's the case, they couldn't "descend" like Good Fairies do---they'd have to "ascend", right?

(Below are my masks I purchased in Africa.)

WHERE WAS I?

Oh yes, putting on the Little Bunny Foo Foo puppet show for Blaine.

So Blaine was clapping sarcastically at what I considered a pretty good puppet show above his computer screen. (Yes, you can clap "sarcastically"---you know the clap, the one where the person claps slowly, one clap at a time, while holding an impatient "you complete idiot" expression on their face...)

Anyway, I stopped the puppet show and rolled on the floor laughing my stupid head off. I knew I had made my point, don't you think so? So from now on, if I can't get his attention, I'll simply whup out the Little Bunny Foo Foo Puppet Show for his enjoyment.

Told ya I can solve problems.....

(Below is my refuge---my knitting nook. I have no idea why the flash didn't go off and light it up any better. The round black object is a fountain---the water drips down the doohickeys that stick out.)

(And below is an area that is obviously not re-decorated yet. It's a mess! But Robin wanted to see a pic of the sweet potato vines and also I did want to show how I solved the problem of what to do with them, since they wouldn't survive the winter outside. Also, we may have a night in the 30's this week which could do them in. So I brought them inside and stuck them on top of the china cabinets, which seems like a good home for them. And I definitely do need to get this area decorated prettily, hopefully.)

Hi Anonymous! I live in fear a lot about the doilies, heh! But I filled those green and white cannisters with marbles so that the cats couldn't, hopefully, knock them down. Other things on doilies aren't valuable so I don't worry that much. (Or I try to put them in high up places.) I wish I could put out some of my really nice collectibles, like my Painted Ponies, but I know they would definitely be in danger. So I have put all of those type of things in the china cabinet. I needed things to put in there anyway. The only thing out I really worry about is my knitting basket! I cover it with a cloth I tuck into it when I'm not watching over it!

Oh, the yarn. Between the cat's claws and the son's running legs (Noooo you've broken my yarn AGAIN! Son mutters sheepishly, "Sorry, mom") my yarn is always under attack. My husband breaks as many knickknacks as the cat does. I am a lone island of nervous concern in a hurricane of family and pets.

I can totally relate. And I don't know how many times I've returned to my knitting basket and my strand of yarn has been literally chewed in half. I cannot fathom why cats have to do that! Playing with it, yes---but chewing it in half?

sheesh I just typed a whole message then deleted it in one easy move...

I had written that I think your home has a lovely warm, welcoming and cozy look . I really like that you added pieces you made.Home dec is a long process, putting things in just the right place, I agree that you move things around a lot until they look just right.I love the tea set and those cannisters a beautifulI also have a knitting nook! good job! everything is coming together

you notice that they have one eye on the television or the computer screen and the other, the eye that's supposed to be paying attention to you, is glazed over, obviously not registering what you're saying.

ps this line cracked me up!I actually laughed out loud, by myself at the computer!!! Good one and oh so true!

Hi again, Robin! The pic of the sweet potato vines is up, at the bottom of the blog under the knitting nook area. I wish they were both equally bushy instead of one looking so much smaller than the other. Lord that area is messy. The light fixture chain is still wrapped up for protection from when we were painting.